This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else

The SUNDAY TIMES Top Ten Bestseller

#1 Book of the Year, UNCUT

#1 Book of the Year, ROUGH TRADE

Book of the Year, MOJO



Over the course of two albums and some legendary gigs, Joy Division became the most successful and exciting underground band of their generation. Then, on the brink of a tour to America, Ian Curtis took his own life.



In This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else, Jon Savage has assembled three decades' worth of interviews with the principal players in the Joy Division story to create an intimate, candid and definitive account of the band. It is the story of how a group of young men can galvanise a generation of fans, artists and musicians with four chords and three-and-a-half minutes of music. And it is the story of how illness and inner demons can rob the world of a shamanic lead singer and visionary lyricist.



Jon Savage is a bestselling author, broadcaster and journalist. His books include England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock, Teenage: The Creation of Youth, 1875-1945 and1966: The Year The Decade Exploded. He has written sleevenotes for Wire, St. Etienne and the Pet Shop Boys, among others, and his compilations include: Meridian 1970 (Heavenly/EMI 2005); Queer Noises: From the Closest to the Charts 1961 - 1976 (Trikont 2006); and Dreams Come True: Classic Electro 1982-87 (Domino 2008). His most recent book is the top ten bestselling This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division: The Oral History.